Chance in the News

Abstract: I am beginning my tenth year as editor of Chance News. Chance News is an electronic newsletter that discusses articles in the current news based on probability and statistical concepts such as: the risk of flying, DNA fingerprinting in the courts, gambling, clinical trials, strategic decisions in sports, etc. These real world accounts provide a wonderful source of problems and stories, some serious, some funny, some difficult, some easy but all entertaining. In this talk I will discuss some of my favorite stories from the news and show what we can learn from them.

Biographical sketch: Laurie Snell received his PhD in mathematics in 1951 under the direction of Professor J. L. Doob. He taught at Princeton University for three years and then moved to Dartmouth College where he taught mathematics until 1995 when he retired. In the late 50's Snell developed with Professors John G. Kemeny and Gerald Thompson a new course called Finite Mathematics and with them wrote the first Finite Mathematics book. Snell did research in Markov Chain theory with John Kemeny which they published in articles and books. In his last years at Dartmouth Snell developed a new course called Chance based on current chance issues in the news. He maintains the Chance Web site to provide materials to teach this course including the electronic newsletter Chance News and a series of Chance Videos.